What a Texas Girl Dreams (Crimson Romance) (18 page)

“I have to go.”

“So that’s the way you’re going to play this.”

She nodded. “That’s the way it is.”

He sighed and pushed off the doorjamb. “I may not be here when you decide to be honest with yourself.”

Monica hated the confidence in his voice. Hated more that he was right. Some wholesome, Texas woman would catch his eye sooner or later and then she would be left with only memories to keep her warm at night. She took a breath and closed the suitcase.

“When I was little, I used to sleep in that corner.” She pointed to the space between her bed and the wall. “I’d fill it with every stuffed animal I owned when I didn’t want to be alone, when Nathaniel was gone and my mother was too distracted by where he was to worry about me. Or Kathleen or Vanessa, if either one was around. I’d cry myself to sleep, wishing just one of those toys would wake up and hug me and tell me everything was going to be all right. Not one of them ever did, but I kept sleeping there. I’m good at being alone, Trick. It’s what I know. I tried to convince myself I could change, but I can’t. I just don’t have it in me. Seeing my sisters and their babies … “ She raised her gaze to his. “A normal person would have been happy. I was terrified. I don’t know how to be the person I tried to be for you.”

“That’s the fear talking, and you know it. I never asked you to be anything but you.”

She picked up her suitcase and walked to the door. “You badgered me to ‘date’ you.”

“Seemed appropriate, since we were already sleeping together.”

“You made dares with me.”

“Just keeping things light, the way you like them.”

“The point is, I didn’t want a traditional boyfriend. I wanted a fun, loose relationship, but I tried to change what I wanted. For you.”

“You love me.”

Her heart cried at the pain in his eyes. She wanted to drop the suitcase and beg him to accept her, just the way she was. That couldn’t last, though. He would wind up hating her because she couldn’t be the woman he wanted. “You smother me.”

“You’re lying to yourself. Is this what racing Piebaby at the fairgrounds was about?”

“Ye — no. How did you know about that?”

“Small town, sweetheart. Where everyone knows everything about everyone else. I thought maybe you were just testing him, but it was more, wasn’t it? I gave you your ticket out of here.”

“He’s my horse; you only brought him here.”

“Not much of a leap, if you ask me. I thought I was helping you get past what happened to Jinx.”

“You did. Piebaby isn’t a barrel racer, but he is a good horse, and I am going to ride him next weekend in Wyoming.” Monica ordered herself to stand still. To not run across the room and throw herself into Trick’s arms. Yes, she loved him. Too much to hurt him. “My life is rodeo. You deserve more than a part-time girlfriend, and I can’t be anything but that.”

Monica backed out of the room, watching until she couldn’t see Trick any more.

Then, she turned and ran.

Chapter Nine

Monica circled Piebaby with the rest of the riders. The pole holding up the American flag sat snugly against her saddle. The crowd sang along with the piped-in national anthem, and as the last bars rose in crescendo, she took her place in the center of the ring.

A few whoops and hollers sounded from the crowd, growing louder as the music faded away, and then everyone burst into applause, screaming at the tops of their lungs.

Piebaby shifted, unused to the noise inside the arena. He stilled when she tightened her hold on the reins. Finally, the announcers finished talking, and the participants began one last lap. Flags whipped in the wind created by the fast-moving horses. A flash of light, and then green and blue fireballs cascaded from the sky. The echo of the firework’s boom sounded loudly behind her. Far away from the steers and other livestock.

She breathed a sigh of relief.

Cameras flashed from the stands as they rode out of the gate. Workers set up the first barrels, but Monica didn’t stay to watch. She continued around the back of the chutes to her truck and trailer.

After she unsaddled Piebaby and stored the gear, she loaded the horse into the trailer and shut the gate. Sagged against it.

She was tired. So tired she didn’t consider staying to watch any of the other events. Monica climbed into the cab, twisted her key in the ignition, and pulled out onto the highway. She sipped stale, black coffee until she saw a roadside motel with a corral off to the side where Piebaby could stretch his legs.

Leaving Texas five days before, she hadn’t thought about what a trip like this would be like for the horse. He was exhausted from standing for long hours in the back of the trailer, unhappy not having a place to run or forage.

The rodeo, he’d loved. The loud noises hadn’t bothered him. The crowd of people wanting to see him and the other horses hadn’t fazed him.

Both had bothered her. She paid for the room and then let Piebaby into the corral for the night. She filled a bucket with grain and another with water and then went into her own room. Monica stripped as she walked toward the shower, tossing her clothes as she went. She turned the taps until water began steaming up the room and then stepped beneath the harsh spray. Her chest and arms turned pink within seconds, but she didn’t care. She stood there until the water ran cold and goose bumps broke out on her skin.

Even after her shower, she still felt unsettled. She wanted to sleep. Needed just a few hours of mindless sleep, in which she wouldn’t think about Trick or her family or the fact that this trip would be her last, at least for a while.

She hated everything about this trip, up to and including living out of her suitcase. She didn’t like staying in hotel rooms, drinking stale coffee, or having uninteresting conversations with near strangers over breakfast. She wanted to go home.

Monica never thought that want would consume her, especially after she ran out on Trick. This trip was supposed to be about declaring her independence, getting over the man. All she could think about was going home and snuggling under that navy blue comforter. Finish Jinx’s rehab. Work with Piebaby a little, and maybe look for another barrel racer in a few months.

It was too late to go back. Fear made her decision as soon as Jackson exited that delivery room with Lacy in his arms. Fear had her throwing another layer of mortar on the walls she’d tumbled thanks to Trick and running as far from Lockhardt as she could.

Besides this could all be … boredom because she wasn’t racing. If Jinx wasn’t hurt she would be in the competition not sitting out the event. Until she was positive what she wanted she couldn’t take the chance on hurting Trick again.

Her phone bleeped in the other room. Monica turned off the water and stepped from the shower into the muggy bathroom. She wrapped herself in a towel, moved into the bedroom, and picked up the phone. Vanessa had sent a new picture of the baby — wearing a baby-sized cowboy hat, red boots, and a diaper. He smiled from the fuzzy blanket. Or maybe that was just gas.

The phone bleeped again.

“How was the rodeo?”

Vanessa couldn’t be interested, but Monica answered anyway.

“Hot. Muggy. Dirty. Just got to my hotel room.”

A few minutes later another message hit.
“We miss you.”

A twinge in her chest made her catch her breath. What was wrong with her? Five days ago, she couldn’t get out of Texas fast enough. Two hours ago, she’d felt left out because she couldn’t compete. Now a text message from her sister had her desperate to go home?

She missed them. All of them, babies included. She flipped through the pictures on her phone, smiling at the cute baby outfits her sisters kept texting over. Her finger paused over one photo, taken the day of the barbecue. She and Trick were making faces at the camera while Jackson ordered them to straighten up and let him get a good picture. She traced her finger over Trick’s face.

Most of all she missed Trickett.

Monica turned off the phone, dressed in her most comfortable pajama pants and camisole, and left her hair to dry naturally.

What was she going to do about this?

• • •

Trick punched the heavy bag in his basement, but it barely moved. Monica had been gone just over seven days, he’d had at least ten fights with the heavy bag, and his arms and legs were toast.

He missed Monica. Missed talking with her. Missed making love with her.

Missed knowing she was around, somewhere, even when they were apart.

Damn, but he was a fool.

He threw another weak punch and then sagged against the bag.

Slowly, he made his way up the basement stairs and into his bedroom, where the blue comforter that reminded him of Monica mocked him. He stripped the mattress and threw the bedclothes into a trash bin. He remade the bed in brown and tan and stood back to admire his handiwork. It hadn’t helped.

He should just burn the whole damn thing. Headboard. Mattresses. Box springs. No matter what he did to change the bed, he could still see Monica in the middle of it, and the visions were messing with his mind.

Trick showered and then pulled on track pants and wrapped the towel around his neck. The doorbell rang.

He opened the door and nearly slammed it again, thinking the woman on the other side was yet another mirage. Monica stood; hands clasped before her, boots on her feet, and a navy sundress showing off her curves.

She held a pink-and-brown-striped package in her hands.

Not the pizza he’d ordered.

Better.

Maybe worse.

“Hi,” she said.

So she was real. He wasn’t losing his mind. Yet.

“Can I come in?”

He shrugged and motioned her inside. Keep it light, he ordered himself. Keep it easy.

Her green eyes darted around the room when she stepped inside, but she kept her shoulders straight, her head high. She handed him the package.

Trick watched her for a long moment. “What’s this?”

“It’s for you. From me. I realized a couple of days ago that I’d never gotten you anything. Not when you surprised me with flowers, not after our cave date. So I got you something.”

He sat on the brown suede couch and put the box on the coffee table. It mewed.

A tiny spark of hope caught in his chest.

Nestled inside the box, along with a couple of sparkly shirts and jeans, was Vern’s kitten. It looked up at him and mewed again. The kitten seemed to have doubled in size in the ten days since it had been born in his clinic. The bright orange of its fur was calming to a more dusky shade; its eyes had opened to a milky blue. The kitten batted its paw at him and rolled over, covering its eyes.

“Vern named him Spanky, which actually kind of fits. But he said to tell you he won’t be upset if you want to call him something else.”

Trick couldn’t connect the dots. “You’re giving me a cat?”

She shook her head. “No. I’m giving us a cat.”

“Us?”

“Us. I was less than a day down the road when I realized I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be here, with you. I’m kind of hoping you still want me to be here.” She moved restlessly, her boots slipping along the hardwood floor. “With you.”

Trick swallowed, unable to believe what he was hearing. He did want her to be here, but not because of him. Because it was what she wanted.

“Give Vern back his cat.” He pushed the box toward Monica, who stood uncertainly on the other side of the table.

“I can’t. I won’t. Spanky isn’t just your cat, he’s mine now, too. He needs us both.”

“What do you want from me, Monica? Because I’ll tell you, I’m tired of trying to figure it out.”

“I want the whole package. I want you and this house. I want to see Jinx run around the pasture again, and I’d like to finish Piebaby’s training. But mostly, I just want you.” She stepped around the table and sat beside him on the sofa. “Those are two of my favorite event shirts. I’m giving them to you, so you’ll know I want to be here, not out on the road. I’m staying.”

Trick wanted to feel elated at her words but they left him cold. She was giving up rodeo for him? That wasn’t what he wanted. It was what he’d thought he wanted a few weeks ago, but now he knew differently. He wanted all of Monica, and if that meant she needed to compete then he wanted her to compete.

“No.”

Her face fell at the single word. Before she could say anything, Trick continued. “I don’t want you pretending to be what you think I want you to be. I want you. All of you. The rodeo queen and the horse trainer and the girl who stays up all night to feed a newborn kitten through an eyedropper.”

“But I want to be here.”

“No, you don’t. Or at least not all of you wants to be here all of the time. I get it. You have no idea how much I get it.” Trick took a deep breath. “My father was a lot like yours, minus the alcohol. He didn’t want my mother, another difference, so he had affairs. I can’t remember more than a handful of nights when he stayed at home after dinner in the evenings. To compensate, my mother pretended we were the all-American family. We went to the right church, had family pictures taken every year, had the house in the suburbs. She did all of that because she wanted to be what my father wanted, and she couldn’t.”

“Trick, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” She clasped his hand in hers, and the warmth rocketed to his chest.

“I don’t want you to tie yourself up in the same knots. I’m telling you no. Go live your life. Travel the world and enjoy the spotlight. I won’t hold you back.”

“But you’re not holding me back.” She rested her head on the back of the sofa and squeezed his hand. “You know, when I tested Piebaby at the fairgrounds, I was relieved. Not because I don’t want
him
to be a racer, but because
I
don’t want to be, at least not all the time. I’ve been running away from Lockhardt since I was that little girl, sleeping in the corner. I don’t want to be her anymore.”

“Then don’t let her hold you back. Take what you want.”

“I want you.”

Trick reached over to caress her face. “Close your eyes.” She obeyed. “Picture your life in ten years, exactly as you’ve always dreamed it would be. What are you doing?”